April Fools’ Day is seriously tempting for college newspapers. So many raunchy jokes we could make! So many university officials we could roast! So many punny headlines — more than usual!
And if there’s one thing we learned from looking through Alligator archives Monday night, it’s that our predecessors were pretty creative when it came to April Fools’ Day.
In 1971, the Alligator editors designed a phony front page with a masthead reading “The Floreda Agitator,” referencing the paper’s old nickname.
In 1986, we were “The Incandescent Florida Instigator.”
In 1991, a phony letter to the editor from “Prez Lambada, UF Grand High Poohbah” alerted readers that Student Government would be abolished: “We, the campus administrators who decide the fate of your academic career with our every bureaucratic butt twitch, have some exciting news for you. … All your student activity fees will be returned so you yourself can make bad decisions about how to spend them. Also, campus parking decals have been abandoned. Park your car where you like — we just don’t care anymore.”
But perhaps the best came in 2005: “Donovan takes job with UF rival Kentucky” topped the front page, and at the bottom was a story about UF Transportation and Parking Services banning large cars from campus for taking up too much room. Among the affected was the Student Body president, who whined about having to park his limousine elsewhere.
April Fools’ Day is important because it shows readers that there are actual humans behind the news. We like to have fun, too. But the line between “hilarious” and “what-the-hell-were-they-thinking” is all too easy to cross.
Like all pranks, April Fools’ Day editions can be funny if done right. In general, it seems that corporations have a better time on April Fools’ Day than newspapers. Just look at the 1996 stunt that Taco Bell pulled, when the company announced via seven full-page ads in the country’s leading newspapers that it had bought the Liberty Bell to alleviate the national debt. The new name for the privately owned American relic? The “Taco Liberty Bell.”
So why not go HAM with the jokes this year?
The media is increasingly scrutinized and criticized for careless errors and biased coverage. In this age of information overload, we want our readers to feel confident that they can take our coverage at face value.
We’re not trying to be a buzzkill — we just think solid journalism is responsible and therefore honest.
We never want to dupe our readers, even for the sake of comedy. That would only distract from our daily goal of publishing as much liberal, GDI trash as possible.
Just kidding. ;)
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 4/1/2014 under the headline "April Fools’ rules: Don’t be dumb, don’t cross the line"]
